2015 Precision Agriculture Conference: Breakout Session Series: Part III

Feb 27, 2015

Soil mapping and making zones

More than 20 speakers from different walks of agricultural life participated in over 20 breakout sessions during the 2015 Precision Agriculture Conference.

Presenters included from J.P. Gervais and Aron Gampel from Farm Credit Canada and Scotiabank respectively, speaking about possible economic trends, and Barry Raymer of Practical Precision spoke about the GreenSeeker product.

Part III of the Breakout Session Series will focus on the presentation about soil mapping and making zones put on by Dr. Mike Duncan, NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Precision Agriculture & Environmental Technologies for Niagara College and Doug Aspinall along with Nicole Rabe, representing OMAFRA.

They talked extensively about how farmers can break their fields up into zones using all kinds of characteristics.

Farmers can divide their fields into zones based on yield, landscape, soil and others.

By landscape zones, farmers can divide their land up based on whether the shape of the land is a bowl or a dome.

This helps farmers decide what to plant and where because if the land is dome shaped, the water will run off the top down compared to a bowl shape where the water will flow towards the middle.

Another zone management technique they discussed focused on maps about soil types and soil properties.

Farmers can make zones based on the kinds of soil on the ground like Guelph loam, Brookston clay, etc.

They can now get more in depth by determining the properties of the soil. By determining what percentage is organic matter and other factors, they’ll be able to get their soil up to optimum levels for planting.

Stay tuned for more breakout session coverage from the 2015 Precision Agriculture Conference. If you attended this particular session, how will it help your operation?

Be sure to check out parts one and two of the Breakout Session Series.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.